Rejoice Exceedingly With Great Joy

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, it’s good to see you all here. Thank you for joining us for our worship service.

I’d like to highlight just a few of the announcements you’ll find in your bulletin. This Wednesday we’ll be assembling and distributing Christmas gift bags to our homebound friends. If you’d like to contribute candies, snacks, and small gifts to that, you can leave them in Sue’s office.

We’ll also be doing our Christmas cookie caper again for the Stuarts Draft Retirement Home. That’ll be on the 21st, and I’ll have more information on that next week.

I’ll remind you again of our Longest Night worship service. That will be on the 21st as well at 5:00. If you’re mourning the passing of a loved one or suffering from illness or pain or need, we invite you here on that night.

We’ll also be offering a Christmas Eve service as well with communion. That will be at 6:00 on Saturday the 24th.

Jesyka, do you have anything?

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Father we’re so thankful for this morning, for everyone gathered here in Your name, and for this holy season that celebrates the arrival of Your son. We pray Your presence here this morning. We pray Your Spirit lifts up our voices in song, lifts our hearts to hear your truth, and lifts our spirits so that we may leave this place filled with joy and peace and love. For it’s in Christ’s name we ask it, Amen.

Lighting of the Advent Candle

On this third Sunday of Advent we light the candle that represents joy — joy that comes through the birth of Christ, and through the salvation he gives us.

You’ll notice that this candle is pink instead of purple. There are all sorts of stories about why the candle of joy is pink, from an old tradition of priests wearing pink vestments to an equally old tradition of parents awaiting the joy of a child’s arrival by painting the room pink.

Regardless, everyone agrees that this candle represents joy. Joy goes way beyond momentary happiness, like the happiness a child has on Christmas Day. Joy is a deep happiness that can’t be shaken by whatever you’re going through, and that is the kind of happiness that comes from God alone.

This matters because no matter what we’re called to endure in life, we don’t have to despair. God has given us a joy that no one can take away, and we have light in even the darkest moments.

Paul writes in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”

[light candle]

Will you pray with me:

Father on this third week of Advent, let us remember that the good news of Jesus’ birth has the power to bring us great joy this Christmas season. Our joy isn’t dependent on what is going on in our life, in our world, or the people that we are with. It doesn’t depend on the gifts we give or the gifts we find under the tree. Our joy comes from you. That joy that flooded the hearts of the shepherds, the angels, the wise men, the hosts of heaven, and Mary and Joseph is the joy that still has the power to overwhelm our hearts with rejoicing. Amen.

Sermon

The Christmas story is filled with wonder and miracles and things that just astonish us. As it should be. This was, after all, the greatest event in human history. This was God made flesh. This was the Savior of the world in the form of a baby. Of course there are going to be mysteries and marvels and wonders.

But few of those things match the mystery of the wise men, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about on this third Sunday of Advent. We’re going to be talking about joy, about rejoicing, and how sometimes we completely miss the joy that God wants us to have because don’t see it right in front of our faces.

Turn with me to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 2. Today we’ll be reading verses 1-11:

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:

“‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.”

After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

And this is God’s word.

We don’t know a lot about these wise men. Scholars aren’t in agreement about who they were, or where they came from, or even how many of them there were. We have this picture in our heads that there were three wise men. That’s probably from the Christmas hymn “We Three Kings.” But really, nowhere in this scripture does it say that there were three kings, or thirty, or a hundred.

We don’t know exactly what star they followed, or how it appeared, or exactly when they visited. Matthew only says in verse 1 that it was “after Jesus was born.” He doesn’t say how long after Jesus was born, and Matthew certainly doesn’t say that it was on the night of Jesus’s birth. To Matthew, how many wise men there were and where they came from or when they arrived doesn’t matter. What matters was their reason for making this trip.

And we know it’s a good reason, because we have that word in verse 1 that keeps popping up all through the story of the Nativity, that word “behold” — “Behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.”

These wise men are called Magi in the Greek, which was actually a name given by the Babylonians and Persians. In the second chapter of Daniel, we find that Daniel himself became the leader of an order of Magi in Babylon.

They were a class of priests, but they were much more than priests. They were also astronomers, biologists, chemists, and philosophers. They were doctors and teachers and interpreters of dreams. Many people believed they were gifted with magic.

They were wise, in other words, maybe the wisest people in the world at that time. And their knowledge of the stars led them to a knowledge of God when there appeared a strange, bright, new star in the sky.

Scientists are still arguing over what this star was. Some think it was a planet, others a comet, and some think there wasn’t a star at all.

The most current theory is that the sun, the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn were all aligned in the constellation Aries in the east. Jupiter and the moon together represented the birth of a ruler with a special destiny, while Saturn was the symbol of giving life. For the Magi, who studied these sorts of things, that sign in the heavens would have meant the birth of a new king in Judea.

But now the questions start, don’t they? Because in verse 1, we see that the wise men don’t go to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. Instead, they go to Jerusalem. Why do they go to Jerusalem?

Well first, that was the general direction where God placed this star. Second, Jerusalem was the capital of Judea under Roman rule. It was a place of great learning and culture. If a king had been born — a king so wonderful and great that a star had been set in the heavens to announce it — then that king wouldn’t be found anywhere else other than in the capital of a nation, inside the palace.

But of course the wise men don’t find Jesus there. The person they find instead is Herod, who had been named as king of Judea by Rome.

Like a lot of Roman rulers, Herod is not a nice guy. He’s cruel. He’s evil. He’s arrogant. And it’s to this king that the wise men ask their question in verse 2: “Where is he who has been born the king of the Jews?”

The wise men are saying what almost everyone at that time is wondering. Everywhere in the east, people are looking for the coming of a great king who is supposed to rise from among the Jews. And notice how the wise men frame their question. They don’t ask, “Where is our king?” They ask, “Where is the king of the Jews?” This shows us that the wise men weren’t Jewish at all. They weren’t believers. They were Gentiles.

“Where is he?” they ask. They ask the people in the city, they ask Herod’s ministers, they ask Herod himself. Because by now, the wise men are confused. They can’t understand what’s happening. They expected all of Jerusalem to be celebrating. Surely everyone in the city knew this king had come. But that’s not what the wise men found at all.

Strange, isn’t it? The first announcement to Jerusalem — to God’s holy city — that the king had been born doesn’t come from anyone there. Instead it comes from a group of pagan foreigners who’ve traveled hundreds of miles. No one — not Herod, not his ministers, not the priests — seems to know a thing about this happening.

No doubt they’ve all seen the star. You couldn’t miss it. But nobody knows what that star means.

How many times do you think God sends you a sign of His presence that’s so clear and so obvious that it’s staring at you right in the face, but you miss it? You miss it because you’re too busy looking at other things that don’t matter, or you’re looking only for what you want to see? How many times do you think you go about your daily life without noticing the hand of God right in front of you?

It’s worth asking yourself that question and making your mind up to start getting your eyes off your little problems and onto God. Because everybody, no matter who they were, was given the chance to see that star. But only the wise ones knew that star was God talking.

But now that the wise men are here asking all these questions, the star has gotten people worried. And nobody in the whole kingdom was worried more than Herod himself.

The gospel writers have this great way of describing a person’s character in just a few words. We have this here when Matthew describes Herod. In verse 3, we see that Herod is troubled by the news these wise men have brought, and that word “troubled” is better translated as “alarmed.”

Herod’s not just worried, he’s scared. When these wise men are shown into the palace, they’re treated as honored guests. The magi are famous for their learning, their wisdom, and their wealth. This is a big deal. So when the wise men say, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” what’s Herod’s first reaction?

His first reaction is, “Well, you’re looking at him. I’m the king of the Jews. That’s my title.”

But when he finds out about this baby, this child, he’s worried. And when Herod finds out that this news has reached him by supernatural means — by a star so strange and bright that it’s convinced the magi to travel all this way to bow down and worship this child, to bow down and worship someone other than himself — Herod’s scared.

But notice in verse 3 that Herod isn’t the only one who’s troubled. Everybody in Jerusalem’s troubled as well.

The people know what kind of man Herod is. They know this news is enough to turn him violent. They’re as scared as Herod is about a possible change in government, because changing the government back then was a lot different than it is now. In America, we have a change in government all the time, and our Constitution demands that it’s peaceful. But in the ancient world, a government never changed without a whole lot of people dying.

So Herod tries to get ahead of this, starting in verse 4. He assembles all the chief priests and scribes and asks them where the Christ was to be born.

Now this isn’t a formal meeting of the Sanhedrin or the Great Council. Remember, Herod has to keep this quiet. This might only be a committee called together for this special purpose.

The chief priests are the holy ruling class of Judea. The scribes are the interpreters of the law. Put them together, and you have the most educated people in the nation gathered in that room. If anybody will have an answer, it’s them.

And things are tense in that room. Herod has murdered dozens of priests and scribes during his rule, so you know they’re nervous. And Herod has to be in an even worse mood now, because here are these people he considers religious nuts, but he needs their advice. It isn’t a historical question he asks them. It’s a theological one: Where, according to prophecy, is the Messiah’s birthplace?

But now wait, here’s another question. Herod’s asking in verse 4 where the Christ was to be born. Did the wise men say anything about the Christ? They didn’t, did they? They’re just talking about a king. But Herod’s always been paranoid, and in this case his paranoia is right on the money. He’s become convinced this new king who had been born is the Messiah, and he’s right.

The priests and scribes answer in verse 6 that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, and they offer as proof a prophesy from the prophet Micah.

So now Herod knows where this new king is. But before he sends his soldiers to Bethlehem to kill this new king, he needs to know who they’re looking for. A baby? A young boy? A young man? He needs to know how old this boy is.

For that, Herod uses the wise men themselves. Again, he does this in secret. Herod doesn’t want word of the Messiah getting out to more people.

Verse 7 says that Herod got from the wise men “what time the star had appeared.” That translation is a little off. Literally it says that Herod asked them about “the time of the star that was appearing,” meaning the star that had guided the wise men all that way was still visible in the nighttime sky.

It hasn’t been that long since the wise men first observed the star, only a few months or years. But Herod’s still cautious. In verse 8, he sends the wise men as his messengers and asks them to come back to Jerusalem and tell him exactly where the child is, so that he can go worship this king himself.

Now, does Herod have any intention at all of going to worship this child? No. We see down in Matthew 2:16 what he really has in mind. He kills all the male children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under. He has no desire at all to worship this Messiah. Herod just wants the Messiah dead.

It might seem strange that none of the priests, none of the royal ministers, and not even Herod himself go with the wise men to Bethlehem. Especially since it’s only a few miles away. But the Jews are more afraid of Herod than they are eager to worship the true king. They don’t want to go, because they don’t want Herod to think they’re plotting to bring this child to power and revolt against Rome.

And Herod won’t go, because he’s afraid the parents of this child would run and hide if they knew he was coming. Same thing if Herod sent soldiers along with the wise men. You see God’s hand working here to keep the young Jesus safe, don’t you?

So the wise men set out again in verse 9. And it’s kind of funny when you think about it. Here they are so knowledgable about the world, but they’re either too ignorant or too trusting to know the ways of the sinful heart, because they believe every word Herod told them.

They’re going to visit this child, and they’re actually going to come back and tell Herod exactly where the boy is because they think Herod wants to go worship this new king too. It’s actually going to take angels warning the Magi not to go back to Herod for them to understand.

But the wise men aren’t thinking about that right now. Right now they’re filled with anticipation, because their long journey is almost over. The star rises in the night and leads them on to Bethlehem and then comes to rest over the place where the child is. And what’s their reaction in verse 10 when they see the star come to rest? “They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.”

On the night Jesus had been born, there were crowds in Bethlehem for the census. But by now those crowds had all cleared out, and Bethlehem was once again the quiet little place it had always been.

It seems as if Joseph and Mary had taken up residence in Bethlehem, because in verse 11 we see that the wise men go into their house and see the child with Mary his mother.

There’s no mention of Joseph. Poor Joseph, right? He’s left out of so much of scripture. The Bible never records Joseph saying anything, not one word. His life is almost a total mystery.

It certainly appears that he wasn’t at home when the wise men came. Maybe he was out working, using his carpenter skills to build a stone wall around someone’s house or repair a chair or a door. Earning his money so he could provide for his family.

And maybe even the fact that he was somewhere else in that moment held a purpose. It was good that these wise men who came to the door that night would see only the mother of this child whose father was God Himself. Had Joseph been there, the wise men might have taken him to be Jesus’s real father.

And can you imagine Mary’s reaction? Here’s a knock at her door, and she opens it to find not Joseph, not a neighbor, but Magi. Several Magi. These wise men, these famous men, greet her with great kindness, then they bow down to worship her boy. And then they give gifts. Treasures. And we all know what these treasures are, don’t we? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

It was customary in those countries for people to offer gifts to anyone they visited whom they respected and admired. These gifts were special, though, because they would come to represent Jesus’s life on earth as a whole.

Gold has always been a symbol of the good things in life, of wealth, and the means by which we can care for the needs of others. That gift signifies Christ as a king whose kingdom and riches would have no end.

Frankincense was a white resin taken from Boswellia trees. It can take up to 25 years before the sap can be harvested from the tree, making it at that time as valuable as gold. It’s very fragrant when it’s burned and was used in worship, where it was considered a fragrant offering to God.

Myrrh was taken from a tree in the same way that frankincense was. It was mainly used in embalming the dead because it preserved corpses from decay. It was also sometimes mixed with wine to form a bitter drink, and that same mixture was what was given to Christ on the cross.

All very meaningful gifts, aren’t they? Did the wise men know the meaning of what they gave? I don’t know. Maybe. But more likely they brought those gifts because those were the most valuable things in the country where the Magi lived. They were tokens of respect paid to the newborn King of the Jews, and they show the high regard they had for Jesus and the belief that he was special above all other people.

And verse 11 seems to suggest that these gifts weren’t small in the least. Taken literally, the phrase “opening their treasures” points to caskets or chests. There was a great amount of gold, frankincense, and myrrh given to this child, which would greatly support the family and keep them from poverty. This would especially be needed, because Joseph would die before Jesus began his ministry.

And these gifts would come in handy soon, because Joseph and Mary will leave for Egypt in order to escape Herod’s murder of all of Bethlehem’s young boys. God takes care of us in ways that we don’t always know or see. We just have to get out of the way and let Him.

There’s so much in this story to teach us. Not just during Christmastime, but all year. So much to learn about and be reminded of.

One is that the birth of Jesus was an event of great importance not just to Israel, but to the world. So important that God even helped these wise men to find the place of Christ’s birth.

And another, God will always guide those who earnestly seek the Savior. You’ve seen that phrase on Christmas cards and signs, haven’t you? “Wise men still seek Him.” It’s true.

But think about that long way the magi had to travel. Those hundreds of miles over desert and through wilderness. Those lonely nights out there all alone, cut off from their families. The nights when the star couldn’t be seen at all because the clouds were so thick.

How many of those nights did one of those wise men think, “What am I doing out there? I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m cold. These camels stink. I stink.”

But God still led them, didn’t He? Every step of the way. He led them when they didn’t know where they were going, or how long they’d be gone, or even what they’d find. God led them to exactly where He wanted them to be, so those wise men could find exactly what they were looking for.

And is there any other definition of a life well-lived than that? Is there any other measure of success than to say, “I’ve searched for God and found Him because I never gave up, and He never failed in leading me to the King”?

And last, our being led to Christ should make us rejoice. This is important, and I’m going to talk about this a lot more on Christmas Day when we get to the angels and shepherds. Meeting Christ, experiencing him in our lives day after day, should create in us a sense of joy. That’s what the wise men felt. “They rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.”

But I’m going to tell you something, joy is tough when your expectations go unmet. And when it comes to God, we have a lot of expectations. A lot of expectations about what we think God should be, and what God should do, and what God should be like. And almost at every step along the way, the wise men’s expectations weren’t being met.

They expected to find the king in the capital, in Jerusalem, in the greatest city in the land. But the king wasn’t there. Instead, the wise men found a tyrant named Herod.

They expected to find all the land in celebration. Surely everyone would know the king had come, and what his name was, and where he could be found. Instead the wise men found all the people — even the wise and learned and religious ones — going about their lives as they always had, too consumed with the world around them to look up and consider the wonder of that star in the sky, and what it meant.

All those expectations the wise men had about this Jewish king when they set off for Jerusalem had been slowly chipped away. And those expectations had to finally have been shattered when they saw the star come to rest not over s grand city, not over a huge palace, but over a tiny little shack in a tiny rundown town.

But instead of saying, “This can’t be the king,” they rejoiced. These wise men, wealthy men, these men of an elite class, weren’t offended in the least at the sight of this poor family’s home, this mother dressed in little more than rags, this child of poverty. Instead they fell down on their faces and worshipped him. They gave that child and that family as much honor and respect as if they would have found them in a palace.

Their expectations were broken, but because of that they could feel absolute and overwhelming joy. The wise men sought the king, and they surely found him. And what they found was far greater than anything they expected, someone they could truly rejoice over.

We see this all through the Bible. God delights in upsetting our expectations. Abraham and Sarah didn’t expect a child, when their son was born it was such an impossible surprise that he was named Isaac, which means “he laughs.”

David was the smallest of all his brothers, but he was the one anointed as king.

And the prophecy in Micah that the priests and scribes quote up in verse 6, let’s pay attention to that too. Because Micah says a ruler will come, and he will rule like a shepherd. He will guide and not push. He will rule with mercy and grace rather than violence and threat.

They actually quote the prophecy itself to Herod, but none of those priests or scribes believed it. They didn’t believe it because they expected the Messiah to be a warrior that would reclaim Israel from the Romans and restore the nation to what it once was.

That’s the irony of the Advent season. That’s what God calls us to understand. Because all of us to a certain degree have our own idea of who God is supposed to be, and what He’s supposed to look like, and what He’s supposed to do in our lives and in the lives of others.

But God says, “No, I want you to have a hopeful expectation in the unexpected.” He says, “I want you to look for My faithfulness in surprising ways, in ways you never expect. Because My covenant with you is certain. I will always lead you. I will always guide you. I will always protect you, and I will always, always love you. But how I lead and guide and protect and love you won’t always be predictable. I’m going to surprise you in ways you can’t imagine, because I’m God. I know what you need even if you don’t.”

It’s an important question you have to ask every day: Do you love God as He is, or do you love a version of God that’s created by your own wants and desires? By your expectations? When you pray, are you praying to the real God, or just your idea of God?

The wise men found their expectations of God stripped away the moment they saw that holy child, and they rejoiced. Rather than turning away and making that long journey home confused and doubting, they worshipped Jesus all the more and went home with a joy that would remain in them for the rest of their lives.

Let us have the courage and the faith to do the same whenever God doesn’t seem to make sense in our own lives. Because His promises are still there. They never fade. His love is still there. It never fades. That’s how we can have joy that’s everlasting. That’s how we can rejoice exceedingly with great joy.

Let’s pray:

Father we thank You so much for this story that we revisit every Christmas season, and we thank You for the lessons these wise men teach us. That we should always seek You, knowing we will find You. That we should understand that You won’t always appear to us in the way we expect or assume, but instead in a way that speaks to our deepest needs. And remind us, Father, that our reaction every time upon meeting You is to rejoice — rejoice in Your love for us, in Your grace and mercy, and in the promise that You will never leave us or forsake us. Fill our hearts with the spirit of this season, and let every word and deed speak of You. For we ask this in Jesus’s name, Amen.